So, apparently *today* is Delurking Day. (I Googled it a few days ago and couldn’t find a difinitive answer on the exact date and then I promptly forgot all about it.)

For all of those who quietly peek in on this blog and yet rarely (or never) leave a comment, this is your time to give a shout out and let me know you’re out there. Say hello, everybody, and to each of you, my sincere thanks for visiting now, and hopefully throughout the year.

Cheers!

NaBloPoMo, Day 5

As some of you have already noticed, I shook things up on the blog last night by giving it a makeover, because it’s not like I had anything else I really needed to be doing.

Thanks for the early thumbs up, friends. I wish I could take credit for the new look but I simply plugged my stuff in to a new template. While poking around on the Typepad site, I discovered a few new (beta) themes that piqued my interest and started playing around. I like what I’ve got so far, but it’s very much a work in progress. There are a number of kinks in the template that need to be worked out; it’s by far the buggiest new toy in the TypePad toolbox that I’ve played with in a quite a while.

I like that this design maintains the crisp, clean look that I prefer, while punching it up with some color. Best of all, it allows me to create a banner using my photography. (I’d given up on having a unique banner, acknowledging I have neither the time nor patience to try and design myself a banner in Photoshop. Finally, TypePad has made it as simple as uploading a photo to create an original banner.) The nifty thing about this theme in particular is how it serves up a complimentary color scheme based on the photo used. (They actually give you three palettes to choose from.) So, as I change the banner, I’ll be freshening up the entire look of the site all at once.

My least favorite aspect of the new design is the TypePad profile junk that’s currently stuck at the top of the left column. In their quest to incorporate social media, they’ve got this follower/following thing that’s exclusive to the TypePad community; with Twitter and my own RSS blog reader, I don’t need nor use the TypePad version, especially because it is so insular. Hopefully there will be a way for me to remove this block and replace it with Recent Comments, a much more interesting and dynamic section of the page.

I also removed the “Link Within” related posts that appeared with each post. They weren’t used all that often by visitors on the site and with this new design they just added to the clutter. Finally, I’ve removed the ads. In all the time they’ve been there, even if I combined the pennies I’ve generated from Google and Amazon, it hasn’t been enough to get me a check for the minimum payout. I’m just too small potatoes.

One year ago today, I unintentionally began a personal project, posting to this blog every day for a year. I didn’t realize it at the time, it just kind of happened as I began in late October of 2008, rolled on through November’s National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo), and just kept going. After a few months, I decided to see how long I could go, one day at a time, and then about halfway through, I was on a mission to see if I could make it through an entire year of posting once a day.

Meaningless as it may be in the grand scheme of things, I mark this year with a certain sense of accomplishment. I saw it as a creative exercise, getting myself to sit down (even when I didn’t necessarily want to) to compose a post every day for a year, displaying more diligence than with any journal I’ve ever kept. I rarely lacked for material but often had to squeeze in the time.

Often the spontaneous posts (those I never would have written had I not wanted to play the game and get an entry in for the day) were some of my best received. Many times I sat down with one thing in mind and hit the “publish” button with quite a different post, surprising myself with what resulted. I managed to post on election day, after working over 20 hours; I posted from my vacation in the middle of the Caribbean; and I occasionally drove my friends crazy as I searched desperately for a connection to the interwebs, so I could make my post of the day while away from home.

I’m also proud that very rarely did I have to punt in order to make my deadline. It was never for lack of something to say and almost always came down to a matter of timing. On a few occasions I nearly forgot and barely squeaked through in time. A few times, I was literally heading up to bed when–d’oh!!–I’d realize I have one last thing to do before calling it a day.

One side effect I’d hoped to gain from my daily postings was an increase in readership to the site which never happened. That was a bit of a disappointment but I kept on because, while it might have been nice, that wasn’t the reason why I was doing it.

And now that I’ve reached the milestone (actually 365 + one posts in a row) I’m going to take a break tomorrow and intentionally break the string. That way I won’t be tempted to go for another year.

See, this is why I love Twitter. It led me to my new favorite website this morning (via Halfpress). The name says it all: awkwardfamilyphotos.com. It’s brilliant. Equal parts hilarious and horrifying and altogether addictive. Like potato chips, you can’t stop at just one page of photos.

This evening, I mentioned it while we were sitting around after dinner and before you could say matching sweaters, Jen had the laptop out and we were all chortling and aghast at the festival of awkwardness compiled on this site.

This one and this one are a good place to start. Be sure to read the captions, they’re wicked funny. And settle in, you’re going to be there awhile. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.